In its recent report, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control distanced itself from prior claims that a relationship exists between global warming and extreme weather events. The panel now states this relationship has not been demonstrated scientifically.

There is interesting information published by scientists who are independent of the U.N.’s IPCC.

It is true that proxy temperature and carbon dioxide records are contained in glacier ice cores. There have been many times in the past 800,000 years that carbon dioxide levels were two or three times higher than today.

Scientists estimate that 200 to 300 million years ago, carbon dioxide levels were many times today’s levels (Berner and Kothaualla 2001, and others.) The world was a little warmer in those eras, but there is no evidence of major temperature increases as would be predicted by the U.N.’s IPCC computer programs based on those eras’ carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Why not?

Independent scientists have concluded from ice core data that long-term prior temperature increases preceded carbon dioxide increases by several hundred years, not the other way around (Mudelsee 2001, Fischer 1999, and others). This is extremely important information that is in direct conflict with assumptions in IPCC models to date.

Evidence is accruing that changes in the Earth’s temperatures may be driven by variations in solar activity. It is an accepted fact that the ocean is a huge reservoir for carbon dioxide. Some scientists are beginning to examine whether long-term solar-driven increases/decreases in temperature are the significant factor in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Increasing temperatures release carbon dioxide from the ocean. If, upon further study by scientists, this turns out to be the explanation of actual events over geologic time, then carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are not nearly as important as claimed by some environmentalists and politicians.

Other considerations include growing agreement amongst experts — Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin, U.S. climate expert Judith Curry and others — that there has been no increase in the Earth’s temperature since 1997.

Also, there is recent news about large increases in Arctic ice mass. In 2007, when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore said the North Pole may be “ice-free by 2013.” Satellite photos now show massive ice increases. Gore was way off.

Complicated computer calculations are seldom totally trusted by engineers who are responsible for making things that must work. As a recent example, Boeing subjected the wing of the new 787 airliner to extensive load and stress testing in a huge test rig to validate the design that had been done by complicated computer calculations. If as a society we don’t want to take chances on computer model errors that might result in airplane wings failing, should we not be even more careful in using the results of computer models to declare future climate?

Recent studies by German researchers found that all 65 climate-model computers used by the IPCC to predict the future failed to predict the lack of temperature rise in the last 15 years or so. In a September 2013 interview by German Public Radio, professor Hans Van Storch stated, “The Earth has warmed considerably less than expected over the past 15 years. That may be due to an unforeseeable climate variability, or that CO2’s effect as a greenhouse gas was over-estimated.”

The GPR interviewer then goes on to summarize: “If anything, this interview shows that German climate science is beginning a slow shift and that warmist scientists are starting to come to terms with the real possibility that they have been wrong all these years — possibly very wrong. It also shows that they are admitting that climate is poorly understood. The science is nowhere near understood, let alone settled.”